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2023-24 edition, english, ph.d..

The Ph.D. program in English at UCI is the #1 department for literary and critical theory nationally (US News and World Report). The research and teaching of department faculty represents and cuts across a range of fields, historical periods, and methodological approaches. Our  graduates have gone on  to faculty positions at a range of nationally ranked colleges and universities, including, in recent years, the University of Michigan, Tulane, Rice, Clemson, BYU, and Connecticut College.

Many of our Ph.D. faculty and students participate jointly in collaborative, interdisciplinary research clusters and reading groups. Some groups currently active include  The Center for Early Cultures , the Culture and Capital Center,  Medieval Devysings ,  Poetics | History | Theory , the Queer Theory Reading Group, and the Rhetoric Reading Group. Our Ph.D. program allows students to customize their study and research around their own intellectual interests. Students can also take seminars in other programs and departments, and can receive interdisciplinary certificates in  Asian American studies ,  Chicano/Latino Studies ,  Critical Theory ,  Gender and Sexuality Studies ,  Latin American Studies ,  Medical Humanities ,  Rhetoric and Composition , and  Visual Studies

All admitted students receive a multi-year funding package, including a range of teaching opportunities. Students may enter the graduate program in English with either a B.A. or an M.A. In either case, the first two years are spent taking courses, completing the language requirement, and writing the M.A. paper. In the third year, students select two or three fields of study for their qualifying exams - exam lists are developed by the student in consultation with their advisor and are intended to help the student build expertise and confidence toward a future dissertation. After successfully completing the qualifying examination, students write a dissertation under the supervision of a three-person dissertation committee, which they select.

Admission to the Ph.D. program in English is determined by careful review of the applicants' prior academic performance, writing sample, letters of recommendation, and personal statement. Admission is for the following fall quarter only. The application and supporting documents (transcripts, writing sample, and three letters of recommendation) are required by the deadline. Applicants must use the university's electronic application process.

Since admission to the graduate program is competitive, it is recommended that prospective applicants consider carefully the following information:

• One of the most important components of an application is the writing sample. This should be a critically-oriented piece that illustrates an applicant's ability to do scholarly research and interpret literary or cultural texts. It is helpful if the writing sample is relevant to your proposed field of study, although this is not a requirement. Only one writing sample should be submitted, and it should not exceed 20 pages. Please note: the writing sample and the statement of purpose (part of the university's online electronic application) are two separate essays, and both are required for the Ph.D. application.
• The statement of purpose is generally 1-2 pages and should tell the admissions committee who you are as a scholar, what your research interests are, and why you are applying to the UCI English Ph.D. program in particular. The personal history statement , also part of the online application, is not required but is highly recommended, especially for those applicants who think they may be eligible for a diversity fellowship. It should address aspects of your background or personal experience relevant to your application and/or to your academic interests.
• A minimum undergraduate grade point average of 3.50 in the last two years of undergraduate study is recommended to be competitive.

For more information about the application process, including deadline and information for international students, visit the UCI Graduate Division application page .

Students must take a minimum of 15 graduate seminars, of which a maximum of three can be taken outside the English Department, though students are allowed to petition for additional courses to count toward the requirement. Courses should expose students to a variety of topics, approaches, genres, and theoretical issues in literary history as well as prepare students for an area of specialization. Adequate historical coverage generally entails at least one course on literatures in English in each of the following periods: medieval; Renaissance; the long 18th century; Romanticism; Victorian or late 19th century; the 20th century. Students should take courses from a number of different faculty in order to provide a good basis for choosing members of committees and to gain educational breadth and diversity. All work for the Ph.D. degree must be in courses limited to graduate students.

M.A. Examination

As the coursework for the M.A. nears completion, students meet with their advisor to plan for the M.A. examination. The advisor and the student will select a seminar essay the student has already written and which will be revised for the M.A. examination (the essay should be article length, i.e. between 20 and 40 pages). The purpose of the revision is to demonstrate that a student has the skills needed to pursue a Ph.D. in English. The final paper must, therefore, be well-written and clearly argued. The student will also prepare a "Statement of Purpose" which addresses coursework to date and plans for subsequent courses; plans for the qualifying examination and dissertation; and professional aims. The exam meeting itself will be conducted by a member of the departmental M.A. Examination Committee and two other faculty members, including the student's M.A. advisor. Examinations usually last one hour.

Foreign Language Requirement

The student must demonstrate a highly proficient reading knowledge of one foreign language by passing a translation test. The test must be passed before the M.A. examination. The tests are two-hour sight translations - during which the use of dictionaries is permitted - and may be re-taken. The Graduate Committee asks qualified members of the Department or other departments to set and mark the examinations.

The Department expects its graduates to obtain considerable teaching experience before completing the Ph.D. The amount of teaching any candidate may do will depend upon the availability of teaching assistantships and the maximum limit of 12 quarters of appointments before advancement to candidacy and 18 quarters of total teaching support. (Both are campuswide limits.) Appointments are made on the basis of academic progress and performance as a teacher at the university level. All other considerations being equal, students making normal progress toward the degree have a more compelling claim to support than those who do not. For instance, although students can receive up to 18 quarters of support, priority is normally given to those who have not yet used 15 quarters.

Qualifying Examination

After students have completed the coursework (and any other requirements), they prepare for the qualifying examination. Working closely with the chair of the committee (confirmed at the M.A. examination), the student should select three other members of the examination committee. A fifth member, working or non-working, from outside the Department and sometimes from outside the School of Humanities, is selected by the chair of the committee in consultation with the student. The primary function of the qualifying examination is to test the student's knowledge of two or three fields of specialization. Working with the advisor and the other members of the committee, the student will prepare reading lists in each of these two or three fields; the number of works read for the examination should total 120-150. Each field list will also be prefaced by a "headnote," written by the student, of 500-1000 words. The examination itself will take place in the spring quarter of the student's third year. It consists of eight hours of on-campus writing and (a week later) a two hour-long oral exam covering both the written exam essays as well as any texts on the student's lists.

Upon satisfactorily completing the qualifying examination, the student is admitted to candidacy for the degree.

Dissertation

After completing the qualifying examination, the candidate will form a suitable dissertation committee of three members, chaired by a member of the Department. The candidate and the committee will discuss expectations for a substantial piece of writing - a prospectus, introduction, or chapter draft to be completed in the quarter immediately following the qualifying exam. The committee and the candidate will discuss the piece and make plans for the dissertation as a whole. After submitting the full dissertation to their committee members, students will be required to pass an oral dissertation defense with their doctoral committee prior to filing the dissertation and graduating.

The normative time for completion of the Ph.D. is seven years, and the maximum time permitted is nine years.

The following interdisciplinary emphasis programs are available for English Ph.D. students as an optional supplement to their coursework and study.

Emphasis in Asian American Studies

The emphasis in Asian American Studies is offered to students in an array of fields in the Schools of Humanities, Social Sciences, Social Ecology, and the Arts. Completion of this rigorous academic sequence demonstrates significant scholarly ability and ethical commitment to the critical study of race broadly, and of Asian Americans in particular.

Emphasis in Chicano/Latino Studies

The emphasis in Chicano/Latino Studies is available in conjunction with all Ph.D. programs offered at UC Irvine. As a supplementary program of study, it provides substantive, theoretical, and methodological training in Chicano/Latino studies. Additional coursework allows students to develop an interdisciplinary understanding of Chicano/Latino issues to further their research program and be better prepared to engage with diverse communities.

Emphasis in Critical Theory

Critical Theory at UCI is understood in the broad sense as the study of the shared assumptions, problems, and commitments of the various discourses in the humanities. An emphasis in Critical Theory is available for doctoral students in all department within the School of Humanities.

Emphasis in Feminist Studies

The Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies offers an emphasis in Feminist Studies , which emphasizes interdisciplinary, multicultural scholarship and includes course work in feminist theories, the cultural roles of women, women's socioeconomic condition, women's history, women's literature in a cross-cultural frame, women's images in fine arts and film, women of color, and lesbian and gay studies. 

Emphasis in Latin American Studies

The graduate emphasis in Latin American Studies is open to students from all fields and allows students to gain interdisciplinary knowledge about the study of Latin America and form scholarly relationships with a range of faculty and graduate students interested in Latin America from across the UCI campus.

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2023-2024 Catalogue

A PDF of the entire 2023-2024 catalogue.

Appointments

Appointments can be booked for all students (undergraduate and graduate) by visiting   WC Online . WC Online is a writing center tool specifically designed to manage and track appointments. In addition to providing available sessions, whether in person or remotely with writing specialists, peer tutors, graduate writing consultants, or for asynchronous feedback, WC Online also offers text and email reminders. 

For first time users, you will need to register and create an account on WC Online using your UCI email. 

For more information or to resolve technical difficulties, visit the WC Online Manual .

Appointments for Undergraduate Students

The Writing Center provides three kinds of writing support for undergraduate students: appointments with writing specialists, appointments with peer tutors, and asynchronous feedback.

Appointments with Writing Specialists

Writing Specialists provide an in-person (at Science Library 193) or remote 50-minute consultation for in-depth feedback on any kind of writing you’re working on, whether you don’t know where to start, have an outline, have a first draft, or are on the final draft. Writing Specialist appointments are best scheduled well in advance of deadlines as they have limited availability. Sign up for an appointment with a Writing Specialist.

Appointments with Peer Tutors

Peer tutors hold in-person or remote 25-minute appointments where you can get advice about overall writing strategies, general editing, and research strategies. Peer Tutors have both daytime and nighttime hours, as well as locations in the Science Library, Langson Library, and student housing areas. Sign up for an appointment with a peer tutor.

Appointments for Graduate Students

Graduate students can book 50-minute appointments with our Graduate Writing Consultants (GWCs). Our GWCs are experienced graduate students who are able to help you work on a variety of writing concerns and genres, including articles for publication, grant and fellowship application materials, job market materials, and dissertation/theses. Graduate Writing Consultants have both in-person (at Science Library 193) and remote appointments available. Sign up for an appointment with a Graduate Writing Consultant.

We also offer regular writing groups and writing boot camps for graduate students. The writing groups function as accountability spaces to set goals and commit to two hours of drafting writing projects, with time at the end to share progress toward goals. Writing groups do not involve sharing and receiving feedback on your drafted material (please check out the Graduate Writing Consultant appointments for feedback). The best way to view our upcoming writing group times is via Campus Groups. Once you’ve logged in, search for the CEWC/Writing Center’s events or for the “Graduate Writing Group” events (they are visible to all UCI grad students). The remote writing groups require registration on Zoom, but in-person groups only require that you show up at the designated time and location. 

Graduate Writing Boot Camps are multi-day (usually three), intensive programs for graduate students hoping to generate significant progress in drafting long-term, high-stakes projects like dissertations, theses, and articles for publication. In addition to discussions about how to set and achieve realistic goals and making space for writing, the boot camps offer workshops on relevant topics like receiving and incorporating feedback and developing effective long-term writing habits. We run boot camps roughly 2-3 times a quarter; you can view upcoming boot camps on Campus Groups , our calendar, and social media.

Giving Students Options for a Concept Paper in a Business Communications Course

The Communication Spotlight features innovative instructors who teach written, oral, digital/technological, kinetic, and visual communication modes.

Jennifer Hite received her BA majoring in Environmental Studies with a minor in Political Science from University of California at Santa Barbara, her MA in Communication Management from the Annenberg School of Communication at University of Southern California. She received a PhD in Organizational Behavior at UCI/The Paul Merage School of Business. Professor Hite has been an Instructor at the Annenberg School of Communication at USC, School of Business Administration at USC and UCI/The Paul Merage School of Business. She is a member of the Academy of Management, International Communication Association and the Society for Human Resources Management.

What is the assignment? 

Concept Paper: Project or Idea Pitch

Project overview: You can choose from one of two tracks for the assignment:

• Introduce a new product or
• Introduce an existing product to another country.

Track 1: Introduce a New Product

Students selecting this track will produce a concept paper and pitch that follow the requirements of the Stella Zhang New Venture Competition . By the end of the quarter, you’ll have a solid concept paper and pitch ready if you choose to compete.

Product selection, Track 1: The product must be a completely new product or a better version of an existing one that is affordable to most Americans. In addition,

• A new service or a digital product may not be used.
• If you’ve already submitted a concept paper for the New Venture Competition, you may not use the same idea or paper for MGMT 191W. However, we encourage you to use the original work you create for MGMT 191W for the competition.

Track 2: Introduce an Existing Product to Another Country

Students selecting this option will introduce an existing product to a country they are not familiar with. Here are the requirements for both the product and the country you choose.

Product selection, Track 2: The product must be an existing one that is affordable to the people in the country you’ll be introducing it to. In addition,

• It must be a consumer product ; that is, an item of common or daily use, typically bought by individuals for private consumption.
• It must be a product consumers can purchase in brick-and-mortar stores.
• Although the product you choose may already be available in the country, your goal is to find one that is not already easily available in the country .
• It cannot be a product consumers rent or that they must subscribe to, such as a meal service.
• It cannot be for commercial use only.

Country selection, Track 2 : The country you use for the report must be one you have never visited, are not from, do not have any cultural ties to, have any relatives from, or know very much about.

How does it work?

In just three pages, students must develop a complete pitch that’s designed to convince investors (Track 1) or their CEO (Track 2) to adopt their product or idea. They build a credible argument by using library resources and careful paragraph development. The paper requires them to carefully analyze the potential market characteristics as well as any competitors, and to use color to engage the reader. The skills they develop in this project are easily transportable to work assignments once they graduate.

What do students say?

“The Concept Paper was a very informative assignment. It was the combination of a research paper and a corporate pitch/report, which worked to mimic potential assignments I will have once I graduate and get a corporate job. I particularly liked that my research was catered towards a specific audience, which led to it being more refined and avoiding any unnecessary information.” – Student Response

Student Artifact: 

This paper, pitching a new product idea, engages the audience with color and in the first paragraph with an attention-getting opening. They use bullet points and numbered lists to draw the reader’s eye and to quickly summarize information. The analysis of the market potential establishes the reach of the product, backed by recent, credible research. In addition, the analysis of the product’s competitors focuses on the product’s advantages over others. The paper is concise, well-written, and well-researched.

Read the full paper here .

Why does this work?

By asking students to choose between two options for their concept paper – either introducing a new product or an old product to a new market – the assignment is essentially asking students to choose their purpose and their audience. This choice can prompt students to think about the relationship between purpose and audience and craft their writing accordingly.

Check out these resources for developing business writing assignments in your communication classes:

• Implementing Student Choice within an Assignment from University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Business Writing Handout from UNC to help students understand typical expectations for business writing
• This particular assignment asked students to use figures in their writing. Your students might find this resource from the CEWC helpful for using tables and figures.

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Department of English

M.f.a. creative writing.

English Department

Physical Address: 200 Brink Hall

Mailing Address: English Department University of Idaho 875 Perimeter Drive MS 1102 Moscow, Idaho 83844-1102

Phone: 208-885-6156

Email: [email protected]

Web: English

Thank you for your interest in the Creative Writing MFA Program at the University of Idaho: the premier fully funded, three-year MFA program in the Northwest. Situated in the panhandle of Northern Idaho in the foothills of Moscow Mountain, we offer the time and support to train in the traditions, techniques, and practice of nonfiction, poetry, and fiction. Each student graduates as the author of a manuscript of publishable quality after undertaking a rigorous process of thesis preparation and a public defense. Spring in Moscow has come to mean cherry blossoms, snowmelt in Paradise Creek, and the head-turning accomplishments of our thesis-year students. Ours is a faculty of active, working writers who relish teaching and mentorship. We invite you in the following pages to learn about us, our curriculum, our community, and the town of Moscow. If the prospect of giving yourself three years with us to develop as a writer, teacher, and editor is appealing, we look forward to reading your application.

Pure Poetry

A Decade Working in a Smelter Is Topic of Alumnus Zach Eddy’s Poems

Ancestral Recognition

The region surrounding the University of Idaho is the ancestral land of both the Coeur d’Alene and Nez Perce peoples, and its campus in Moscow sits on unceded lands guaranteed to the Nez Perce people in the 1855 Treaty with the Nez Perce. As a land grant university, the University of Idaho also benefits from endowment lands that are the ancestral homes to many of the West’s Native peoples. The Department of English and Creative Writing Program acknowledge this history and share in the communal effort to ensure that the complexities and atrocities of the past remain in our discourse and are never lost to time. We invite you to think of the traditional “land acknowledgment” statement through our MFA alum CMarie Fuhrman’s words .

Degree Requirements

Three years to write.

Regardless of where you are in your artistic career, there is nothing more precious than time. A three-year program gives you time to generate, refine, and edit a body of original work. Typically, students have a light third year, which allows for dedicated time to complete and revise the Creative Thesis. (48 manuscript pages for those working in poetry, 100 pages for those working in prose.)

Our degree requirements are designed to reflect the real-world interests of a writer. Students are encouraged to focus their studies in ways that best reflect their artistic obsessions as well as their lines of intellectual and critical inquiry. In effect, students may be as genre-focused or as multi-genre as they please. Students must remain in-residence during their degrees. Typically, one class earns you 3 credits. The MFA requires a total of 54 earned credits in the following categories.

12 Credits : Graduate-level Workshop courses in Fiction, Poetry, and/or Nonfiction. 9 Credits: Techniques and Traditions courses in Fiction, Poetry, and/or Nonfiction 3 Credits : Internships: Fugue, Confluence Lab, and/or Pedagogy 9 Credits: Literature courses 12 Credits: Elective courses 10 Credits: Thesis

Flexible Degree Path

Students are admitted to our program in one of three genres, Poetry, Fiction, or Nonfiction. By design, our degree path offers ample opportunity to take Workshop, Techniques, Traditions, and Literature courses in any genre. Our faculty work and publish in multiple genres and value the slipperiness of categorization. We encourage students to write in as broad or focused a manner as they see fit. We are not at all interested in making writers “stay in their lanes,” and we encourage students to shape their degree paths in accordance with their passions. 

What You Study

During your degree, you will take Workshop, Techniques, Traditions, and Literature courses.

Our workshop classes are small by design (typically twelve students or fewer) and taught by core and visiting MFA faculty. No two workshop experiences look alike, but what they share are faculty members committed to the artistic and intellectual passions of their workshop participants.

Techniques studios are developed and taught by core and visiting MFA faculty. These popular courses are dedicated to the granular aspects of writing, from deep study of the poetic image to the cultivation of independent inquiry in nonfiction to the raptures of research in fiction. Such courses are heavy on generative writing and experimentation, offering students a dedicated space to hone their craft in a way that is complementary to their primary work.

Traditions seminars are developed and taught by core and visiting MFA faculty. These generative writing courses bring student writing into conversation with a specific trajectory or “tradition” of literature, from life writing to outlaw literature to the history of the short story, from prosody to postwar surrealism to genre-fluidity and beyond. These seminars offer students a dynamic space to position their work within the vast and varied trajectories of literature.

Literature courses are taught by core Literature and MFA faculty. Our department boasts field-leading scholars, interdisciplinary writers and thinkers, and theory-driven practitioners who value the intersection of scholarly study, research, humanism, and creative writing.

Award-Winning Faculty

We teach our classes first and foremost as practitioners of the art. Full stop. Though our styles and interests lie at divergent points on the literary landscape, our common pursuit is to foster the artistic and intellectual growth of our students, regardless of how or why they write. We value individual talent and challenge all students to write deep into their unique passions, identities, histories, aesthetics, and intellects. We view writing not as a marketplace endeavor but as an act of human subjectivity. We’ve authored or edited several books across the genres.

Learn more about Our People .

Thesis Defense

The MFA experience culminates with each student writing and defending a creative thesis. For prose writers, theses are 100 pages of creative work; for poets, 48 pages. Though theses often take the form of an excerpt from a book-in-progress, students have flexibility when it comes to determining the shape, form, and content of their creative projects. In their final year, each student works on envisioning and revising their thesis with three committee members, a Major Professor (core MFA faculty) and two additional Readers (core UI faculty). All students offer a public thesis defense. These events are attended by MFA students, faculty, community members, and other invitees. During a thesis defense, a candidate reads from their work for thirty minutes, answers artistic and critical questions from their Major Professor and two Readers for forty-five minutes, and then answer audience questions for thirty minutes. Though formally structured and rigorous, the thesis defense is ultimately a celebration of each student’s individual talent.

The Symposium Reading Series is a longstanding student-run initiative that offers every second-year MFA candidate an opportunity to read their works-in-progress in front of peers, colleagues, and community members. This reading and Q & A event prepares students for the third-year public thesis defense. These off-campus events are fun and casual, exemplifying our community centered culture and what matters most: the work we’re all here to do.

Teaching Assistantships

All students admitted to the MFA program are fully funded through Teaching Assistantships. All Assistantships come with a full tuition waiver and a stipend, which for the current academic year is roughly $15,000. Over the course of three years, MFA students teach a mix of composition courses, sections of Introduction to Creative Writing (ENGL 290), and additional writing courses, as departmental needs arise. Students may also apply to work in the Writing Center as positions become available. When you join the MFA program at Idaho, you receive teacher training prior to the beginning of your first semester. We value the role MFA students serve within the department and consider each graduate student as a working artist and colleague. Current teaching loads for Teaching Assistants are two courses per semester. Some members of the Fugue editorial staff receive course reductions to offset the demands of editorial work. We also award a variety of competitive and need-based scholarships to help offset general living costs. In addition, we offer three outstanding graduate student fellowships: The Hemingway Fellowship, Centrum Fellowship, and Writing in the Wild Fellowship. Finally, our Graduate and Professional Student Association offers extra-departmental funding in the form of research and travel grants to qualifying students throughout the academic year.

Distinguished Visiting Writers Series

Each year, we bring a Distinguished Visiting Writer to campus. DVWs interface with our writing community through public readings, on-stage craft conversations hosted by core MFA faculty, and small seminars geared toward MFA candidates. Recent DVWs include Maggie Nelson, Roger Reeves, Luis Alberto Urrea, Brian Evenson, Kate Zambreno, Dorianne Laux, Teju Cole, Tyehimba Jess, Claire Vaye Watkins, Naomi Shihab Nye, David Shields, Rebecca Solnit, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Susan Orlean, Natasha Tretheway, Jo Ann Beard, William Logan, Aisha Sabatini Sloan, Gabino Iglesias, and Marcus Jackson, among several others.

Fugue Journal

Established in 1990 at the University of Idaho, Fugue publishes poetry, fiction, essays, hybrid work, and visual art from established and emerging writers and artists. Fugue is managed and edited entirely by University of Idaho graduate students, with help from graduate and undergraduate readers. We take pride in the work we print, the writers we publish, and the presentation of both print and digital content. We hold an annual contest in both prose and poetry, judged by two nationally recognized writers. Past judges include Pam Houston, Dorianne Laux, Rodney Jones, Mark Doty, Rick Moody, Ellen Bryant Voigt, Jo Ann Beard, Rebecca McClanahan, Patricia Hampl, Traci Brimhall, Edan Lepucki, Tony Hoagland, Chen Chen, Aisha Sabatini Sloan, sam sax, and Leni Zumas. The journal boasts a remarkable list of past contributors, including Steve Almond, Charles Baxter, Stephen Dobyns, Denise Duhamel, Stephen Dunn, B.H. Fairchild, Nick Flynn, Terrance Hayes, Campbell McGrath, W.S. Merwin, Sharon Olds, Jim Shepard, RT Smith, Virgil Suarez, Melanie Rae Thon, Natasha Trethewey, Philip Levine, Anthony Varallo, Robert Wrigley, and Dean Young, among many others.

Academy of American Poets University Prize

The Creative Writing Program is proud to partner with the Academy of American Poets to offer an annual Academy of American Poets University Prize to a student at the University of Idaho. The prize results in a small honorarium through the Academy as well as publication of the winning poem on the Academy website. The Prize was established in 2009 with a generous grant from Karen Trujillo and Don Burnett. Many of our nation’s most esteemed and celebrated poets won their first recognition through an Academy of American Poets Prize, including Diane Ackerman, Toi Derricotte, Mark Doty, Tess Gallagher, Louise Glück, Jorie Graham, Kimiko Hahn, Joy Harjo, Robert Hass, Li-Young Lee, Gregory Orr, Sylvia Plath, Mark Strand, and Charles Wright.

Fellowships

Centrum fellowships.

Those selected as Centrum Fellows attend the summer Port Townsend Writers’ Conference free of charge. Housed in Fort Worden (which is also home to Copper Canyon Press), Centrum is a nonprofit dedicated to fostering several artistic programs throughout the year. With a focus on rigorous attention to craft, the Writers’ Conference offers five full days of morning intensives, afternoon workshops, and craft lectures to eighty participants from across the nation. The cost of the conference, which includes tuition, lodging, and meals, is covered by the scholarship. These annual scholarship are open to all MFA candidates in all genres.

Hemingway Fellowships

This fellowship offers an MFA Fiction student full course releases in their final year. The selection of the Hemingway Fellow is based solely on the quality of an applicant’s writing. Each year, applicants have their work judged blind by a noted author who remains anonymous until the selection process has been completed. Through the process of blind selection, the Hemingway Fellowship Fund fulfills its mission of giving the Fellow the time they need to complete a substantial draft of a manuscript.

Writing in the Wild

This annual fellowship gives two MFA students the opportunity to work in Idaho’s iconic wilderness areas. The fellowship fully supports one week at either the McCall Outdoor Science School (MOSS), which borders Payette Lake and Ponderosa State Park, or the Taylor Wilderness Research Station, which lies in the heart of the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area. Both campuses offer year-round housing. These writing retreats allow students to concentrate solely on their writing. Because both locations often house researchers, writers will also have the opportunity to interface with foresters, geologists, biologists, and interdisciplinary scholars.

Program History

Idaho admitted its first class of seven MFA students in 1994 with a faculty of four: Mary Clearman Blew, Tina Foriyes, Ron McFarland (founder of Fugue), and Lance Olsen. From the beginning, the program was conceived as a three-year sequence of workshops and techniques classes. Along with offering concentrations in writing fiction and poetry, Idaho was one of the first in the nation to offer a full concentration in creative nonfiction. Also from its inception, Idaho not only allowed but encouraged its students to enroll in workshops outside their primary genres. Idaho has become one of the nation’s most respected three-year MFA programs, attracting both field-leading faculty and students. In addition to the founders of this program, notable distinguished faculty have included Kim Barnes, Robert Wrigley, Daniel Orozco, Joy Passanante, Tobias Wray, Brian Blanchfield, and Scott Slovic, whose collective vision, rigor, grit, and care have paved the way for future generations committed to the art of writing.

The Palouse

Situated in the foothills of Moscow Mountain amid the rolling terrain of the Palouse (the ancient silt beds unique to the region), our location in the vibrant community of Moscow, Idaho, boasts a lively and artistic local culture. Complete with independent bookstores, coffee shops, art galleries, restaurants and breweries, (not to mention a historic art house cinema, organic foods co-op, and renowned seasonal farmer’s market), Moscow is a friendly and affordable place to live. Outside of town, we’re lucky to have many opportunities for hiking, skiing, rafting, biking, camping, and general exploring—from nearby Idler’s Rest and Kamiak Butte to renowned destinations like Glacier National Park, the Snake River, the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area, and Nelson, BC. As for more urban getaways, Spokane, Washington, is only a ninety-minute drive, and our regional airline, Alaska, makes daily flights to and from Seattle that run just under an hour.

For upcoming events and program news, please visit our calendar .

For more information about the MFA program, please contact us at:  [email protected]

Department of English University of Idaho 875 Perimeter Drive MS 1102 Moscow, ID 83844-1102 208-885-6156

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The beauty of creative friendships

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Enuma Okoro

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I recently walked through an incredible exhibition, Willem de Kooning and Italy , at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, which features about 75 art works that the Dutch-American artist created during the time he spent in Italy in 1959 and 1969. The pieces on display include his ink-on-paper drawings, some gestural drawings, large-scale figurative and abstract paintings, pastoral landscapes and sculptures.

Born in 1904, de Kooning spent the majority of his artistic career as a painter but in 1969, while visiting Rome, he ran into an old friend, the sculptor Herzl Emanuel, who invited him to his foundry and encouraged him to try working with clay. At the age of 65, de Kooning created his first sculptural works, 13 small clay items. It was the beginning of a new artistic era for him and, over the next 15 years, with the encouragement of more friends, sculpture became a defining part of his career.

Later, after I left the exhibition, I was struck by how beautiful and seemingly serendipitous it was that de Kooning began making sculpture because of the initial invitation and encouragement of his friend, and that this fact was included in all the exhibition wall texts and many of the articles I’ve read about him in the past.

It got me thinking about the often unacknowledged role that some friendships play in the creative and generative process of artists across all genres. Which in turn led me to think more broadly about the friendships in our lives that have been especially significant to our vocational or professional development. It’s a unique role we can play in each other’s lives, and an important one on which to reflect.

I first came across the 1891 work “An Evening with a Friend. By Lamplight” by the Danish artist Anna Sophie Petersen while I was researching an assignment at the Hirschsprung Collection in Copenhagen. I was instantly taken by what is known to be a depiction of four of Petersen’s friends. Two recline on a red couch, another sits at a small table nearby, poised to put a glass to her lips, while the fourth, thought to be the violinist Frida Schytte, gives a musical performance. There are plants on another table and on the windowsill, and the room is dimly lit. Petersen captures an intimate scene of solidarity and possibly commiseration. It’s not news that the work of 19th-century female artists was not regarded with the same seriousness as that of their male counterparts. But here, she has created a small world where women appear confident and appreciative of their own talents.

There are a number of well-known creative friendships between artists, including Picasso and Matisse, Van Gogh and Gaugin, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, and Warhol and Basquiat, to name just a few. And it is fascinating to research artist and writer groups and how these creative associations influenced the work of members. The early 20th-century Bloomsbury group, of which Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell were a part, is a famous example; the Zaria Art Society, founded in 1958 by a group of Nigerian art students, is another. This group, which included the now renowned artists Bruce Onobrakpeya and Demas Nwoko, sought to ensure that African art and its influence were included in the study of art history in the midst of ongoing negotiations between a newly forming Nigeria and its colonial past.

We often think about those friendships that journey deeply with us in our private lives, supporting and celebrating us through emotional ups and downs. True gifts indeed. But different people have different roles in our lives, even in friendship. And I wonder if we consider and celebrate enough the friendships that help us persist in our professional goals and aspirations, especially when these feel more like uphill battles or when we might be tempted to lose faith in our own abilities because of external voices.

In 1927, American artist Laura Wheeler Waring painted a memorable portrait of the poet, activist and journalist Alice Dunbar Nelson, a friend she knew from their mutual participation in the women’s club movement for African Americans, organisations focused on social and political reform for Black communities during a time of segregation.

Waring painted Dunbar Nelson sitting upright in a radiant yellow gown and matching hat. Her heeled feet extend just below the hemline. Her arms, cloaked in long black fingerless gloves, sit demurely in her lap, revealing painted fingernails. Her head is held high, and her face is turned to the side as she gazes with quiet assuredness away from the viewer. It is as if it does not matter what we think of her. The important thing is what she thinks of herself. It is a very intentional portrayal of a Black woman at this time in history.

Dunbar Nelson was campaigning in the period as another well-known journalist and activist, Ida B Wells, who fought to end lynching. At a time of intense racism and sexism in North America, it was a significant challenge and danger for a Black woman to be outspoken in any manner, let alone as a high-profile campaigner. In doing so, they were perceived not only as unfeminine but, like many others fighting for justice and civil rights, as agitators acting outside “their place” in mainstream white-ruled and patriarchal society.

Waring knew the power of images and used her own vocation as an artist to depict her friend in an elegant and demure manner that was typically reserved for the portraits of white women. But Waring also painted Dunbar Nelson as someone full of self-confidence, inner resolve and quiet power. I love this painting because, although it may be an extreme example, it represents a friendship based around support for the development and progress of another’s vocation. It makes me wonder how many times there might have been occasions on which we could have said or done something to positively affect a friend’s professional life, but we didn’t, for any number of reasons.

There is a moving black-and-white photograph taken by Max Petrus in 1973 and housed at the Studio Museum in Harlem, titled “Hands of James Baldwin and Beauford Delaney”. It shows three hands; the fingers of the smaller hand, belonging to the writer James Baldwin, are placed firmly between the thicker, wrinkled hands of artist Beauford Delaney. Delaney would have been 72 years old at the time of the photo, and Baldwin around 49. It is a beautiful image that seems to capture both the frailty of life and the strength of friendship.

Despite their age difference, the pair were friends for more than 38 years, and they influenced one another intellectually, spiritually and creatively. Baldwin is claimed to have said that Delaney taught him “how to see and how to trust what I saw”. And Delaney painted more than a dozen works inspired by Baldwin, who seemed to have moved the artist in many ways, including through his commitment to activism and the civil rights movement. Eventually, Baldwin convinced his friend to move to Paris in 1953, and from Europe Delaney’s painting practice, according to Baldwin, took on “a most striking metamorphosis into freedom”.

I do not have friendships that are 38 years old but I do have a friend, also a writer, who has been a consistent intellectual conversation partner for me. We met at a writing workshop and have never lived in the same city, but over the past 10 years our friendship has naturally centred on our creative lives. She is someone who often reads and critiques drafts of my long-form work, someone with whom I dialogue about the writing process and about books, ideas and aspirations.

Friendships that nurture our professional and vocational selves are valuable for many reasons. In offering courage, insight and clarity on the work that we put forth into the world, these friendships not only add to the overall quality of our lives, but underline the value of creative communities more broadly. Email Enuma at [email protected] or follow her on X @EnumaOkoro

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‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ Creators Explain That Ambiguous ‘Fairytale’ Ending

Spoiler Alert

A Gentleman in Moscow

[Warning: The following contains MAJOR spoilers for the  A Gentleman in Moscow finale.]

A Gentleman in Moscow ‘s series finale honored its source material with an ambiguous ending. The episode, which aired on Sunday, May 19 on Showtime , revealed what happened after Count Alexander Rostov ( Ewan McGregor ), Anna ( Mary Elizabeth Winstead ), Sofia ( Beau Gadsdon ), and the rest of their friends at the Hotel Metropol launched their plan to get Sofia out of Russia. This also led to Rostov walking out of the hotel’s front doors — an act that’s been paired with the threat of death for decades as he carried out his house arrest in the high-end hotel.

After much planning, Sofia’s school trip became the catalyst for her escape in Season 1 Episode 8, “Adieu.” While some roadblocks set her back and threatened her safe departure, the plan worked out in the end. The signal — every phone in the Metropol lobby going off in quick succession — was delivered and the Count knew his daughter was safe. (Sofia was the daughter of Nina, Alexander’s niece-like companion who grew up at the Metropol. The count took Sofia in as his own after Nina’s presumed death, and Anna became her de facto mother.)

Sofia’s journey out of Moscow is the only one we see onscreen. Count Rostov, Anna, and Mishka’s ( Fehinti Balogun ) journeys after leaving the hotel for the last time were not shown. And like in Amor Towles ‘ best-selling book of the same name, we never find out what really happened to the Count and Anna in the end. We did, however, see the couple one last time in the final frame.

The final moments of  A Gentleman in Moscow show what appears to be one of Sofia’s memories, filmed just like the memory flashbacks from the Count’s point of view that viewers saw all season. Only this time, there are a few hints that indicate this is only a figment of Sofia’s imagination, not something that actually happens. In Towles’ book, there’s a brief passage hinting that Alexander made it back to his ancestral home and met Anna there. Sofia’s imagination in the finale takes things a step further by actually showing the Count and Anna together working peacefully outside of a small cottage.

We know this to be a fantasy because of the black apples (a reference to the family legend the Count would tell his hotel friends) and Sofia’s narration. The apple story said that a person could start their life anew if they were to find these “apples as black as coal.” A grown Sofia is heard saying that she never saw Alexander and Anna again after escaping to America.

Alexander, Anna, and Sofia plan Sofia’s escape to America (Ben Blackall / Paramount+ With Showtime)

“I discovered that Papa had escaped the hotel, but what happened after remains a mystery,” Sofia says. “I like to imagine [Alexander and Anna] finally free, living out the rest of their lives together. They gave me the greatest gift of life. I’ll keep them in my heart. Always.”

The ending was meant to be ambiguous like the book.

“It was about for us, allowing space for the viewer to perhaps decide for themselves what happened and giving them some ownership in that moment rather than trying to be too polemic or didactic about it,” showrunner and executive producer Ben Vanstone tells TV Insider. “We wanted to give some room so people could go away and be left thinking about the story a little bit rather than just necessarily getting everything they want.”

Why Ewan McGregor & Mary Elizabeth Winstead Wanted to Do 'A Gentleman in Moscow' Together

Director Sam Miller says they wanted a “fairytale” feel for the final moments, even though it’s not an explicitly happy ending.

“The key to that was Sofia’s imagination, playing into how Sofia might have imagined the story to have ended,” Miller explains. “That’s what gives it its slight fairytale quality.”

The creative team set out to recreate the feeling of reading Towles’ book when creating this series.

“I think what we wanted to do with the ending was try and capture the same feeling you have in the book. For me, it’s about the emotion of that moment rather than necessarily what happens,” Vanstone explains, adding that his personal experience reading the book produced that same feeling of wonder and ambiguity, but he also walked away feeling that the story was still complete regardless of it ending with a mystery.

“You finish it and it’s not entirely clear. You kind of get a sense of it,” Vanstone says. “And it also is a sum of more than its parts when it all comes together at that end point. It reminded me of One Hundred Years of Solitude as well in some ways, that sort of ending where it’s sort of a magic to it. So it’s all about capturing that.”

It is satisfying to see the POV memory motifs flipped into Sofia’s imagination. Those flashbacks were used as a plot device to show Alexander’s painful memories as he reflected on his life during imprisonment. In the final moments, we get to see him happy with the love of his life as they watch their daughter walk towards them. It’s a fantasy, but one worth showing. Miller explains how this memory flashback idea took root, saying it was something they got “very excited” about “very early in the development” of the limited series.

“We got very excited by the idea that the Count is reaching for his memories,” Miller explains. “One thing you do as soon as you’re cut off from your day-to-day, as soon as you’re encased like that, is you start to analyze what’s happened to you and look at all the things in your past. So we were trying to find a filming style that wasn’t too narratively driven, but could summon the feelings and the emotions that you have when you think about yourself as 6 years old or 10 years old or 18 years old.”

“So we try to make them very emotional and very subjective, so they’re all shot from the Count’s point of view,” he continues. “I think it gives them a real special place within the drama in a sense because it’s not telling you the story’s moving on, but it’s giving you real insight into what the Count’s experiencing and how he feels about himself and how he tries to work out what’s going on.”

Towles says it’s “a great example of how they’ve taken the written word and reinterpreted it for the visual medium.”

“As the writer, I couldn’t create that experience,” Towles tells TV Insider. “When you see those flashbacks, because they’re from the Count’s point of view, it’s like when we have a dream or when we have a memory, we don’t see ourselves in the dream or the memory. We see what we’re watching. And so for the viewer, you’re going to have this feeling of being in his position in this dreamlike moment, and that’s a visual experience that I couldn’t create in writing. The two art forms have their different advantages, and you’re trying to use the advantage of one to amplify the strengths of the other.”

“I think it was all there in the novel as well that you would get a sense of the Count’s previous life and his backstory, but we had to find a way to present that visually,” adds Vanstone. “So again, it’s about taking the novel and what’s there and making it work for television.”

A Gentleman in Moscow , Season 1 Available now, Paramount+

A Gentleman in Moscow where to stream

Amor Towles

Beau gadsdon, ewan mcgregor, mary elizabeth winstead.

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